


Fantasies Come True

by godbewithyouihavedone



Category: Avenue Q - Lopez/Marx, Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: (because I think that's hilarious), Alcohol, Attempted giant Grantaire speeches, Awkward Romance, Courfeyrac is an emotional mess, Cuties, Libertarian Marius, M/M, Marius and Grantaire are bros, Pining, The Grantaire/Enjolras is really background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 03:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1843270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godbewithyouihavedone/pseuds/godbewithyouihavedone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s too late to explain now.  “I overheard your private conversation, convinced myself you were in love with me, and ended up head over heels for you, again," is a sentence Courfeyrac's pride won't allow to escape his lips.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>A surprisingly serious fluff fic based on the song from Avenue Q.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fantasies Come True

Courfeyrac attempts to blink the crud out of his eyelashes, unwilling to rub at his eyes since he fell asleep weird and his shoulders are protesting any sort of movement.  He’d only meant to rest for ten minutes, but the alarm he set has callously betrayed him. The red rays of the setting sun fall across the bunched-up blankets.  He yawns, ignoring the bit of drool he’s resting his chin in.

So much for his project.  It’s not a big deal, honestly.  They got to choose partners, and Marius lives here, there’ll definitely be another time.  Courfeyrac can hear Marius talking in the next room, although to his muddled brain it might as well be in English.

“You still going to do the thing tonight?” he tries to ask, but the pillow receives his words instead.

“Yeah, he’s napping,” Marius says, in the next room. “I can’t talk about it in front of him!”

Courfeyrac very quietly sits up.

“We were gonna do our project for Professor Fauchelevent, but I guess he was tired,” Marius says. “I’m letting him sleep.  Can you still hear me if I keep my voice down?”

_Yes, I can,_ Courfeyrac thinks.

“We went to the movies, and I spent the entire time thinking about...”

Marius breathes deeply.  God damn the walls are thin, Courfeyrac now feels sorry down to his soul when he has other people in their bed.

“Kissing,” Marius says, as low and guilty as if he was confessing to a priest. “Just, in front of everyone, and when we haven’t--I couldn’t even pay attention!”

Wait.

One moment.

Courfeyrac’s head may be fogged with sleep, but he’s pretty sure taking Marius to that obnoxious indie flick he’d spent so much time talking about two nights ago was the only time Marius went to any sort of movie in the past month.  Rejecting your grandfather’s financial support and then getting laid off from your crappy retail job because it was only a seasonal position does not create copious pocket money.

But Marius is straight.

Or so he said.  Courfeyrac has exquisite gaydar.  But Marius is not merely untouched and incredibly puritanical about anything to do with him and sex.  Courfeyrac has watched him flirt.

He called the cute chick who helps with the community garden outside their law school the wrong name, when she’d told him only five minutes before, and then went on a drawn-out tangent about how he was terrified of bees.  That evening, he called the number she gave him.  It turned out she’d thought that he wasn’t hitting on her and wanted to volunteer in the community garden, and was helping him contact the organizer. When he did the flirty “hey” thing and his voice cracked her dad thought he was a chick.  For the last act of this mortifying saga, he had to awkwardly explain his fear of bees to the benefactor their commons area was named after. In falsetto.  Straight, bi, pan, Courfeyrac doesn’t care what Marius is, Marius is bad at it.

“I don’t really, I’ve never had a crush like this before,” Marius says. “Is that what it’s like for you?"

Come to think of it, he did seem distracted during the movie, an odd thing since he’d mentioned it incessantly before Courfeyrac dragged him to it.  And they'd held hands.  But they hold hands a lot, and sleep in the same bed, and it isn’t a big deal.  Maybe Courfeyrac has been unknowingly cruel, figuring that since he’s into most genders, and rarely feels uncomfortable touching all his gorgeous friends, others are the same.

Marius continues. “Hold on, I can’t hear, your line just did something--I’m gonna put you on speaker, okay?  Yeah, but he’s in the other room, and a really heavy sleeper anyway.  Wait, doesn’t he know?”

“No, he tells everything to Enjolras,” Grantaire’s voice says, tinny and quiet from the speaker.

“I’m turning the volume up.  Yeah, I guess.  Am I the only one who knows?”

“Shit, you can’t let-- It’s not the time.  Ugh, I’m such an idiot.”

“Right, you’re the stupid one here.  I got your text.”

Marius sounds sad, and Courfeyrac wants to get up, open the door, pull him in, and hold him.  Marius sounding sad is his Achilles heel.  One iota of trembling in his voice, his eyes downcast and eyelids brushing his cheeks for just a moment, and Courfeyrac is there with jokes and soup.  Usually, he’ll urge Marius’s head into his lap, stroke his hair, pretend he isn’t more comforted by comforting his friend than anything else.

Grantaire sighs. “It’s not like that.  It was amazing, but to him, it’s some sort of tension release, not.  I mean.  He doesn’t know.”

“I’m in love, too,” Marius says.  It’s not whispered, and it rings in Courfeyrac’s ears. “But I don’t know if I’m ready.  So much depends on not messing this up, and it’s not.  Normal.  To be thinking about this, this soon.  Wait, you kissed and he doesn’t know you like him?”

“‘Did it’ does not mean kissed, Marius.”

“You--did you just--oh my god, you can’t tell me these things,” Marius says, and Courfeyrac can _hear_ him blush.

“What, still thinking he’s as pure as his whole save-the-world morality?” Grantaire asks.

Courfeyrac’s head is spinning from these revelations.  Grantaire and Enjolras hooked up.  Marius is in love with him (maybe).  Grantaire and Marius text each other.  The universe is a vastly different place than it was seven minutes ago.

“But you can’t do that without telling him,” Marius says. “It isn’t right.  He deserves to know.”

“And your whole Friends Date was super transparent, I’m sure.” Grantaire lets out an indistinct, sputtering sound, as if he ran his hands over his face. “I don’t care.  It’s hopeless, I’m stupid, we’ve gone over this.”

“That’s not what I said--”

“I made him happy, I think.  That’s more than I’ve ever been able to do with my clothes on.”

Courfeyrac suddenly realizes, with absolute assurance, that he should not be listening to this conversation.  He’d been seduced by gossipy curiosity, but this is very private, and if Marius loves him, he doesn’t need to know.  Because Courfeyrac isn’t dating anyone, he has lovely, lurid nights out and his ridiculous activist friends, and never the twain shall meet.  Not that Marius, Mr. You Should Read Ayn Rand To Learn How To Save The Economy, is even officially a member of their club yet.  But he’s made a lot of progress in his worldview, and like Grantaire he brings a dissenting voice that’s desperately needed in their echo chamber.

Courfeyrac like-likes people, and he’s liked Marius, with his charming way of messing his hair completely in trying to fix it, how his meek gestures are transformed when he talks International Law and quotes from texts that aren’t even in French to prove his point.  Hell, Courfeyrac adores that he never takes money from his grandfather and aunt.  He thought he’d run the usual sloppy-crush protocol: imagine belching, imagine being rude to waitservice, imagine defending Rousseau (after that week he’d watched Enjolras’s hair too much), repeat until less starstruck.

And it had taken.  He’d transferred wanting to push Marius up against their kitchen counter and cover him in kisses to wanting Marius to have a stable family life and good career.  He’d watched him wake up in the mornings and refrained from gnawing on his lip completely.  Courfeyrac may be a bit confused, but he hasn’t lost himself in Marius yet.

Apparently, Marius had wanted Courfeyrac to take him to the movies and hold his hand, not because he was broke and they got on like a house on fire, but because he was handsome and darling and already halfway to being Courfeyrac’s partner.  Best friend has always been a lie between them.

“He’s a private person, and has convictions, and stuff, so that’s not.” Marius clears his throat. “I can’t talk today!  I’m just so nervous for this.  But you know, Enjolras wouldn’t do that, and I think you know, beyond your issues--which--I mean, Courfeyrac once called me Daddy Issues and I think he was trying to be funny but it’s so hard, after--  I think you think he wouldn’t, but he’s not that type of person.  He stares at you in meetings, you know that, it isn’t being annoyed anymore.”

“Well, I think yours has liked you even longer,” Grantaire says. “Thanks.”

“We haven’t talked a lot about it,” Marius says. “I think I should wake Courfeyrac up.  Thanks, you know.”

“For talking about stupid boys?  That’s not a service rendered, that’s an infliction.”

“You’re so lucky,” Marius says. “I wish.  I wish I wasn’t shy and awful about this.  I’d take it too, you know, uh, s...sex.  If that’s.  Just to make her happy.”

Fuck.

Courfeyrac grabs the pillow next to him and fists it between his hands.

He’d been so sure.  How narcissistic, to assume that Marius had no one else he cared about, to not trust Marius’s own statement of his identity, all because Marius is beautiful and passionate and Courfeyrac cannot help but want him, deep in his bones.  He’d learned long ago that being generally in demand and specifically in love did not have to align.  Courfeyrac is good for strangers with slightly less adorable smiles in clubs, he is good for couples on websites looking for someone who has muscles and a non-threatening personality to climb into their bed, he is good at commanding a room to be happy with just a wink and a fun remark after Enjolras has obliterated their assumptions about humanity, but he isn’t the type to come home to.  Or he hadn’t been, before Marius, and still, still so selfish, he wants even more.

“Bye,” Marius says.

“Fuck off, Pontmercy,” Grantaire says, devotion in his voice.

By the time Marius opens the door, Courfeyrac is back under the covers, pretending to sleep.  Marius tiptoes up to him, and gently rests a hand on his shoulder.  It stings like a brand.  “Hey, Courfeyrac,” he says.

“What time is it?” Courfeyrac asks.  He genuinely doesn’t know.

“It’s nine.  You should probably put some clothes on.”

“Stupid Bahorel wanting to do stupid things stupid late,” Courfeyrac whines, dressing methodically.  He doesn’t even make it fake-seductive anymore, while Marius looks away and turns red as their wallpaper.  It would be too close to the truth.

“I think I’m going to actually ask Cosette out,” Marius says.

“Know her name now?” Courfeyrac desperately tries to keep bitterness out of his voice.  It isn’t Marius’s fault he doesn’t want him.  It isn’t the pretty, gentle girl's fault she exists.

“Can you help me?” Marius takes out his phone, the one he’d used to vent to Grantaire about how he felt, and of course it is because Marius is a self-inflicted pauper and people usually only have one cell phone, but for some reason it feels momentous now.

“Huh, sure,” Courfeyrac says, before he can process it.

Marius dials.

“Hey, Bee Boy,” Cosette says, when he answers.  Damn him, he puts it on speaker, again.

Marius opens his mouth.  Then he opens it again.  Then he opens it again.  Finally, “Hi.”

“It was really fun to go to the movies with you,” Cosette says.

“I had--yeah, I’m, you were...also fun to go to the movies with.” Marius smacks his head against their bedpost.

“It’s nice to talk to people about stuff that isn’t plants or donations,” Cosette says.

“My friend is trying to ask you out,” Courfeyrac says, to end his own misery. “On a date.  Because he likes you.  Romantically.”

Marius’s wounded eyes follow him as he walks to the door.

“Oh,” Cosette says, low and contemplative.

“I am so sorry,” Marius says, and Courfeyrac closes the door to give them some semblance of privacy.

\--

A week later, Marius has a vase of flowers on the kitchen table and smells like thyme whenever he comes back from classes, sighing and glancing absently into the distance.  It’s disgusting.  Every night, he’s still in their bed, curled around Courfeyrac, and they watch bad American TV tangled up in each other, and Courfeyrac hasn’t fucked someone whose name he doesn’t know in absolute ages.  Grantaire and Enjolras do not appear to have transformed, but Courfeyrac notices the way they react to each other and he can see the tension, now.

“I’m going to tell her I love her,” Marius says, while Courfeyrac is cooking them dinner.

“That is a really stupid idea,” Courfeyrac says. “You barely know each other.”

“This--person--that I talk to for love advice, they knew they loved--the person they love, uh, within a day.  And they still love him, I mean them, years later.  It happens.  If she’s worth it, I don’t think she’ll be upset?”

Courfeyrac licks his fingers, hums happily, then washes his hands again. “Why jeopardize something that’s working when you can just not say stuff and it won’t matter?”

“I could have swallowed my pride when my grandpa insulted my father and I’d still talk to that side of my family,” Marius says. “I don’t believe lies of omission are any less lying.”

“Noble, noble Marius,” Courfeyrac says, and pokes at the sizzling chicken.

“Even if it’s not convenient.  Okay, here goes.” Marius takes a deep breath. “I liked you.”

Courfeyrac can’t help freezing in place.

“It’s okay, I worked on it, but I’m bisexual and I did like you, for a long time, but you don’t date people, and I feel just as strongly about Cosette.  So now I can tell you, and you know I’m not unhappy.  You get really worried when I’m--”

“You didn’t ask me,” Courfeyrac says.  It comes out choked.

“I don’t always tell the truth, I’m sorry.  It’s just a mess, since we were already roommates and, oh, please don’t tell me you think I was taking advantage--”

“Come here,” Courfeyrac says, but it’s him who walks up to Marius at their kitchen table, and takes his hands, unable to look away from the flowers Cosette gave him in the center, half a foot from their entwined fingers.

“It’s okay,” Courfeyrac says. “It’s all okay.”

“You’re my best friend,” Marius says. “That was always first.  I’m sorry.”

But Courfeyrac is not brave, the way that Marius is.  He is not desparate, like Grantaire.  So he sits there and holds his hands and thinks, _I love you_ , and the chicken quietly burns at the other end of the room.

\--

It’s too late to explain now.  “I overheard your private conversation, convinced myself you were in love with me, and ended up head over heels for you, again," is a sentence Courfeyrac's pride won't allow to escape his lips.

He fervently tries to conjure Marius snubbing and belittling a waitress, but can never quite trick himself into believing his sweet, shy roommate could actually achieve it.

Besides, even if he was going to open that particular can of worms out of some misguided sense of honesty, Coufeyrac would never dream of asking Marius to choose him.  Cosette deserves to be happy.  The more he hears of her the gladder he is they found each other.  And despite his current status as an Austen-heroine-level wistful gazer, in real life, Courfeyrac refrains from relationships for a reason.  He knows people, and himself, and he'd rather love in the ways he's good at.  There's nothing more he could give Marius, and a good deal less.

One night, at a pub with Bossuet, Joly, and Grantaire, Courfeyrac doesn’t even notice he’s flirting with the bartender until she leans in and tells him with her evocative smoker’s rasp what time her shift ends.  He grins and swirls his tongue around his straw.  Joly giggles, running his thumb over the back of Bossuet’s palm, and from across the room Grantaire, taking a call in the back hallway near the bathroom, pauses from manically gesturing to wink.

“Go home with him, he deserves it, poor bastard,” Bossuet says over the bartender’s laugh. “No, no, I mean it.  He hasn’t let himself unwind in forever.”

“Did your test results come back negative?” Joly asks, and Courfeyrac calmly pours his mimosa down the front of his shirt.

In the back of the bar, Grantaire’s conversation heats, and he’s wringing his hands in his hair, almost screaming into the receiver.  They still can’t hear a word.

Courfeyrac turns to the bartender. “My roommate might be in, what are your deepest feelings on cheap motels?”

“Bedbugs,” Joly says.  He’s still dabbing at his collar with his napkin.

“You are the worst wingman ever,” Courfeyrac says, right as the bartender says, “There’s always mine.”

“Ah,” Courfeyrac says.

Grantaire barrels between Bossuet and Joly, breaking their hand-hold.  “Fuck, do you have like motor oil or something?” he asks. “I need shit that burns.  I need not to be conscious.”

“What’s wrong?” Courfeyrac asks.

“I, oh fuck, you don’t even.  Guess nothing’ll make it worse now.  Enjolras and I had a thing--try not to gasp, I can’t believe His Radiance deigned either--and I think.  I think I just broke up with him.  I love him so much, but what the fuck, right?  Bodies come and go, that’s you and me, Courfeyrac, always chasing after some random ass, and now I see.  Remember your big speech about it to the club?  All the fancy words, and I heard ‘I’m afraid of commitment’, but that’s bullshit, you were right.  Fuck love.”

Despite his pity, Courfeyrac can’t help being annoyed that the bartender suddenly has places to be right around the time she’s “some random ass”.

He opens his mouth.  Bossuet puts a hand on his leg to silence him, and that’s probably for the best.  Grantaire is wrong, but Grantaire needs to expel his gargantuan emotional problems in monologue-size bursts.

“Did you know my ex is currently across the bar with the Vice President of Marketing at this shitty-ass bank?  And super into it, even though he’s probably married?  I mean, I knew Enjolras was an asshole.  I knew he was using me.  You just never think, he could be such a fucking emotional tease.  Acting like it mattered one day, and then lying about us to his best friends, and then saying maybe, maybe.  I can’t do it.  I guess I don’t love him as much as I thought, because let me tell you, I was prepared to put up with some shit.”

Grantaire grabs Courfeyrac’s drink, throws the straw at the wall, and begins to drain it, speaking between gulps.

“Fucking Enjolras.  Respect is a basic goddamn human right, and there’s nothing worth less respect than the fact that I don’t even ask for it.  Turns out, all the love stories were wrong: you can think someone’s good enough to fuck and still hate them.  Wouldn’t we be a Shakespeare.  Beatrice and Benedict, hands against our hearts, only, well, the next morning he’s not so sure.  Blonde enough for Desdemona, I guess.  Pretty enough for Helen of Troy, and crueler than Tamora.  Fuck, I mixed my playwrights.”

“Same era, though,” Bossuet says.

“It’s those lovely little chemicals, you see.  Wanting someone, it’s not stronger than lying to yourself about them.  He fucked me and left his goddamn dopamine all over my nerve endings, and I swallowed every happy pill, every ‘Oh, I don’t think you’re ugly.’  Christ, what the world will believe.  There hasn’t been a true love since dowries went out of fashion.  What you need to do, go out, get fucking yoked.  Suffer.  Arranged marriages, they’re just as happy, studies show.  So imperialist and Western we are, thinking it matters who you spend the rest of your life with.  Opening our bodies for pain.  Goodbye, giving a shit.  What happened to the bartender?”

“You insulted her,” Courfeyrac says, softly.

“You were going to fuck her, weren’t you?” Grantaire asks. “Do you have any idea what you put Marius through?”

Courfeyrac takes his coat with him when he leaves.  Immediately, Joly jumps up and trails behind him, and he knows without looking that Bossuet is taking damage control with Grantaire.  He doesn’t care.  Grantaire is a friend, and a good man, and a complete asshole when drunk, but there are easy targets and then there’s Courfeyrac’s heart.

A hand settles on his forearm as he’s about to walk out the door.

Courfeyrac turns, expecting to yell at Joly.

“Sorry I left,” the bartender says. “Your buddy wasn’t too welcoming.  I’m off work, though; perfect timing.”

Courfeyrac grabs her by the shoulders and pushes her up against the back of the “WELCOME” sign in the window, kissing her despondently.  He can taste smoke, and feel the warm weight of her breasts against his chest and her shoulders under his fingers, and for a moment, it’s enough.  She has a house or an apartment or an alleyway for him, far from the bar, and a body he can transform with pleasure, and he knows that by the end of the night he’ll learn she has a story that is more interesting than any other he’s ever been told, just like every last story and every last lover.  He wants this.  He’s always wanted this.  It doesn’t matter what more he wants, it doesn’t, it can’t.

“Good night, Courfeyrac,” Joly says, somewhere in the vicinity.  Courfeyrac breaks, resting his forehead against the bartender’s.  She touches his cheek, and he finds himself almost crying.

“I need to go back to help my friend,” he says.

She smiles.  He thinks of what those lips would look like curving around a cigarette, sucking purpled marks into the shadow of his stomach. “Alright, I can wait.”

“No,” he says. “You’re beautiful, and the way you pour drinks, it’s like you were made to get disaffected college students drunk, I’m the mess here.  Sorry about this.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says. “Come back sometime, when you’ve sorted your shit out.” She grabs his ass, cordially.

Grantaire sits with Bossuet at the bar, eyes red-rimmed, hand a curled claw around a new glass of something. “I’m sorry I left,” Courfeyrac says.

“I can’t keep my fucking mouth shut about anything tonight,” Grantaire says.

Courfeyrac shakes his head. “For what it’s worth, you’re right, Enjolras is completely emotionally constipated.  That’s why he has me.  I haven’t--I’ve been caught up in my own problems, but I can talk to him, if you want.  Or we could leave it here.  But you deserve skywriting, or a public dancing proposal video, or a date, or something.  If someone loves you, then it’s important.  It doesn’t happen enough, or right, a lot of the time.”

That’s why he’d been so happy, for those few minutes when he thought he was Marius’s secret crush.  He still replays those emotions, oftentimes in the deep night, struggling to go to sleep while Marius’s fluttering breath tickles, his his head resting against the back of Courfeyrac’s shoulder.  Because Courfeyrac wants to make Marius happy, and it had been so wonderful to imagine he could do that in a way that made him happy as well.  Too perfect, and a fairytale like the ones Grantaire just railed about.  He’s Marius’s best friend, now, only that, but it has to count for something.

At two in the morning, after Joly and Bossuet promise to drag Grantaire to their flat and tuck him in on their couch, Courfeyrac returns.

Marius isn’t in their apartment.

 

\--

 

Courfeyrac is curled up on the couch eating pity ice cream when he skips in, half an hour later.  He smiles at the door, and then smiles at his muddy footprints, and then smiles at Courfeyrac, and then Courfeyrac tells him his fly is undone and he zips up and then smiles at his fly.  Courfeyrac should have gotten as piss-drunk as Grantaire.

“You finally lost the virginity, huh?” he asks.

“It’s none of your business,” Marius says, but he is unable to contain the dreamy sigh in his tone.

“Grantaire and Enjolras broke up.”

Marius’s eyebrows raise. “You knew?”

“Apparently,” Courfeyrac says. “So that’s my secret.  Now for yours.  You doing okay?”

Marius sits down next to him and grabs for the ice cream. “Yeah.  Yeah.  It’s a bit scary, and weird, and I feel very shy, but she’s amazing.”

“I think she’s amazing, too,” Courfeyrac says, hooking his thumb into the loose fabric of Marius’s shirt at his elbow. “I really do.  You’re so happy.”

Marius looks down at the ice cream in his lap. “You don’t have to feel bad about my feelings.”

“I think we’re talking past each other.”

Deep breath.  Imagine defending Rosseau, or, even easier, remember that big speech Marius gave during his first club meeting about _Atlas Shrugged_.  Don’t be a dick about it, but let him know.  Don’t ask for anything.

“That’s not why I’m saying this stuff,” Courfeyrac says. “This is the worst time, because you’re probably nutty with hormones and anxiety, and first, I want you to remember that I’m glad you’re dating Cosette, I kind of asked her out for you.  She’s beautiful and kind, and she gets your family stuff in a way I never will.  Don’t take this as me asking.”

Marius smiles nervously. “I feel like there’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

“I love you.”

Courfeyrac closes his eyes, shutting out the pity he’ll see on Marius’s face.

Then there’s a hand on his chin, and Marius turns his face, and he feels lips press to his forehead, then wet on his skin.  Marius is crying.

Courfeyrac wants to run.  This is exactly what he was afraid of.  He wanted to be honest, and again he thought he’d done something other than put himself first.  From the moment this poor boy showed up to their law class broke and miserable, stomach grumbling and eyes deep-set, Courfeyrac had only thought of helping him.  When he found out why, and how fiercely Marius was fighting for the right to his opinions, to discover the truth, his admiration increased tenfold.  Everything, always, for Marius, except his own awful emotions.  He wishes he had Enjolras’s control, enough to be an asshole in this one thing.  If it would only spare Marius the pain.

“I can’t deal with this,” Marius says.  Courfeyrac opens his eyes, and he’s sobbing, his soft handsome face screwed up in a contorted not-smile. “I thought--I can’t lose you.  Either of you.”

“Please, I didn’t mean to, I’m not trying to worm my way between you and your girlfriend.” Courfeyrac grabs his jeans to anchor himself. “I tried to say.  This is just me, being an idiot.  Don’t worry.  You’re my--”

He can’t say it.

He can’t call Marius his best friend.  Not tonight, of all nights.

“One moment,” Marius says, and he takes great, wracking breaths, keeping his hand on his chest to stop it from heaving.  Courfeyrac wants to look away, but he’s powerless to move.

Then Marius takes out his phone.

And dials Cosette, and puts it on speaker.

Just what Courfeyrac needed, for this horrible situation to become familiar.

“It’s happened,” Marius says, when they hear her breath on the other side. “It’s happened, he does.  You were right.”

What?

“Courfeyrac,” Cosette says, very sweetly. “You want to date my boyfriend.”

“I don’t,” he says. “I mean, I shouldn’t.  You’re adorable, and perfect for each other, and it was a mistake.”

“Would you still want to date him if we were also dating?” Cosette asks. “Not to be crude, but, I’m willing to share.  I know it’s a lot to ask.”

He looks at Marius, who reaches out, his fingers trembling, to touch Courfeyrac’s neck.  He reels inwardly.

“Turns out I’m indecisive as ever,” Marius says. “We can talk about it more, or you can say no to begin with, it’s fine if you say no.  Keep with us, and something will work out.  Don’t feel pressured.  I want you to be happy, Courfeyrac, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Yes,” Courfeyrac says.  He pitches his head forward, wraps an arm around Marius, whose hold on his neck tightens. “Yes, you’re going to regret it, but I do want this.  You.  It’s just, I’ve got nothing to give.”

“We should do lunch tomorrow,” Cosette says. “Bye boys.  Love you, Marius.  Thank you, Courfeyrac.”

“I--” Courfeyrac says, but Marius silences him by taking his face between his hands again, only this time when he tilts his head up it’s to cover his mouth with his.

There’s a click as Cosette hangs up.

He can feel the softness of Marius’s lips, the slight stubble at his jaw, and the cool wet tear-tracks on his cheeks.

“When I met you, I was broke,” Marius says, when they part.  Then his face flushes, to his forehead. “Uh, that sounded like a gold-digger.  I mean I was broke, and sad, and lost, and you’ve already saved my life from being awful, I think.  So it isn’t weird.  That I’d fall in love with you.”

Courfeyrac tries not to smile.  He gives it a valiant effort.

Marius, however, puts up no resistance.  His smile is wide, radiant, a little lopsided, but it pulls all his features into place and makes Courfeyrac’s insides drip with honey. “And you’re not extraneous, or whatever you seem to, it doesn’t make any sense.  Because I already need you, and I want you.”

“All those nights we cuddled--”

“Yeah, it was bad for us both, I guess.” Marius chews the inside of his lip, thoughtfully. “Uh.  Courfeyrac, now might be the time to mention I lost my virginity tonight.”

“Virginity is an inherently heterosexist, patriarchal, body-policing institution,” Courfeyrac says, and boops him on the nose.

“Ugh, shut up!  I don’t even know what half those words mean!”

Marius smiles, and it’s absolutely addictive, getting him to do this.  If making him chuckle at a joke was amusing enough to be a full-time hobby, producing a dreamy grin is on its way to becoming a total addiction.

“Go on, how was it?” Courfeyrac asks.

“That’s not what I meant.  I mean, I still.  It was so special, Courfeyrac, and it couldn’t be more special.  But I’d like.” Marius takes his hand. “I love you a lot.  I want to make love to you.”

“Rule number one, you can’t call it making love,” Courfeyrac says. “You can’t.  And I want you to have your night with Cosette, it’s alright, really.”

“It would make me happy,” Marius says.

And Courferyac’s complete pushover status must be plain on his face, because Marius smiles like he’s just won the lottery, realizing what power those words have.  Why he didn’t know before, Courfeyrac can only guess.  Ah, well.  They can’t all be emotional geniuses.

Courfeyrac kisses him again, the forgotten ice-cream thudding uselessly on its side between them, causing his new boyfriend--what a word, what a world--to squeak.  When Marius returns from putting it in the freezer, Courfeyrac pulls him onto his lap.

For a moment, they stare at each other.  It’s been so long, wanting him or pretending not to, that a tiny part of Courfeyrac is still waiting to wake up.  He wraps his arms around Marius, as he’s done thousands of times in their bed, and he is still warm and thin and a little fidgety against him.  That’s the terrifying thing: so little has changed.

“I’m going to take you to bed,” Courfeyrac says, pressing his lips gently to the shell of Marius’s ear. “I’m going to do whatever you want, and if you want to know what I want, it’s you.  It’s only ever been you, for weeks, love.  I’m very good, I’ll be very good.”

“Uh huh,” Marius says, shivering against him. “I’ve heard.  I may have used some of your dirty talk with Cosette?”

And that’s how Courfeyrac ends up laughing against his ear, causing Marius to jerk and accidentally fall out of his lap, and Courfeyrac follows him down, leaning over him between their couch and the coffee table, and finally he kisses him there, where he’d tickled with his laughter, and then at the end of his ear, and then right behind it, and down his neck until Marius is squirming and pulling ineffectively at his clothes, and they’re both breathless.  Even more so when Marius suddenly pushes himself against Courfeyrac with a moan.

“So many times I’ve thought about--” he says, half the words a gasp.

“I know,” Courfeyrac says, sliding a hand under Marius’s shirt to feel the smooth skin and the peach fuzz, until his heart leaps under his fingers. “I know.”


End file.
